


The Less Stupid Option

by Writing_Wren



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cat Grant Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, F/F, Kara knows that Cat knows, Katherine doesn't know anything about super stuff, Lucy Lane cameo, but she knows when her daughter is in denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Wren/pseuds/Writing_Wren
Summary: Cat Grant has stepped away from Catco. Kara is so thrown by her sudden absence that she agrees to go to lunch with Cat's mother. This leads her to an "un"expected revelation.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Cat Grant
Comments: 21
Kudos: 206
Collections: Super Santa Femslash 2020





	The Less Stupid Option

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisaof9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisaof9/gifts).



Two weeks ago, Supergirl flew Fort Rozz into space and stopped Myriad. The only alien she has fought since then has been J'onn during training sessions. Her hero work is now almost exclusively made up of stopping small time criminals, and natural disaster relief. She knows it won't stay that way forever. She wonders if when she does finally face another super powered foe whether it will feel different. Any new hero would have taken on the Fort Rozz escapees, Kara thinks. For her though it was personal. Even if her aunt hadn't been among them, even if a different judge had sentenced them, Fort Rozz was filled with aliens from her system, some even from Krypton, and they were the only other beings on the planet that knew just how much she had lost.

Kara works hard to be a hopeful person. She has to be to keep from being consumed by all that she has lost. So, occasionally, she had entertained the daydream of finding a way to reach out to and connect with even just one of the prisoners, to end their conflict without needing to fight, and even gain a new ally, perhaps inspiring others to follow. A daydream where she had a friend who didn't need to have the scent of thorni tea described to them when said she missed it, but instead just nodded, and told her how they had preferred their tea with some verdas juice stirred through.

But all hopes of that are gone now.

Eleven days ago, Kara was given an office of her very own, and offered a promotion of her choice. Nine days ago, she decided to become a junior reporter. She had considered becoming an editor, keeping journalism in the family without copying her cousin’s footsteps. She had been almost ready to tell Cat as much, but then James had pointed out how even with her own office, people would expect to see her around since junior editors rarely had cause to leave the building before home time, even for lunch. This was followed by Winn making a very good point about how searching for stories would also help her keep an ear out for things that required Supergirl's attention.

So now she was a junior reporter. Cat had been unsurprised, and supportive, but had made a rather poignant comment about how she herself had started as a reporter and had used that experience to become a brilliant editor in chief. Just another thing Cat seemed to know without Kara being able to acknowledge that she knew.

Kara had spent two days caught up in the whirlwind that was meeting, figuring out, and gaining the beginnings of something like respect from the infamous Lucas 'Snapper' Carr. All the while Cat was there, giving her encouragement and guidance disguised as snide remarks, and sarcasm laden lectures. It helped her stay steady as she adjusted to her new job expectations both as Supergirl and as Kara.

For two short days Kara had been able to daydream about one day spending evenings in Cat's office, no longer as her assistant, but as he fellow journalist. Kara would sit and type up her latest article while Cat went over proofs, they'd swap stories about breaking in to classified areas to get a scoop, and sometimes Cat would narrate exactly what was correcting in a piece and why, just so Kara would learn for the future. They'd order in from Noonan's and eat out on the balcony on warm evenings and laugh together about whatever shade of red Snapper had turned that day when faced with a new intern who didn't know what a semicolon was. Then maybe Kara would fly to the little gelato cart in Italy Cat had once mentioned after a holiday with Carter and get them some desert. 

But then, one week ago Cat had announced that she would be leaving Catco, that it was time for her to dive, and just like that Kara's burgeoning new hopes were crushed.

In classic Cat Grant fashion once she had decided to do something it was done in short order.

Four days ago, Cat Grant had left Catco in the hands of James Olsen and disappeared from the public eye, leaving Kara completely unmoored in her wake.

For the past four days Kara has been living what feels like a fun house mirror reflection of her life only a few short weeks ago. A life in which being Supergirl doesn't quite feel quite so super and working at Catco doesn't feel quite so normal.

Maybe that's why when she got a phone call, from Cat's mother of all people, basically demanding they meet for lunch at some country club type place all the way out in the hills she had agreed.

Which is why she's currently fiddling with the corner of a cloth napkin that probably costs more than both the shirt and skirt she is wearing while Katherine Grant stares her down. It's not a glare, not by the standard Kara is used to receiving from a Grant, but it's something similar. A disdained appraisal perhaps. As if she has seen everything of Kara and found her so beneath her that she can't even bother summoning the emotion it would take to look angry or even annoyed. It actually reminds Kara somewhat of how Snapper had looked at her throughout her first day, and so she keeps her head up, meeting Katherine's gaze with a not quite glare of her own. They have been sitting like this since she greeted Kara with a curt "sit down girl" and sent the waiter scurrying to fetch her the entrée. Kara had not been given the chance consider the menu or order her own, and still had no idea if Katherine had taken the liberty of ordering for her or not.

The demanding phone call that had summoned her here, hadn't hinted at what exactly their meeting was about, though Kara could guess it would be about Cat in some capacity—she was the only reason they knew each other, and the only interest they had in common—but to what end, she didn't know. The one piece of real journalistic advice Snapper had given her since she had started working under him had come after he'd watched her fumble her way to the end of that phone call.

"If you're gonna agree to get dragged halfway out of town, don't go asking why they've dragged you there," he said. "They think they've got the power because they summoned you, but they're the ones that wanna talk, and you're the one who decides if they get listened to. You're the one with the power."

So here Kara sat. Not asking why she was here, repeating _"you're the one with the power"_ in her head like a mantra, and waiting. She considered that trying to out stubborn a Grant wasn't actually her best move but there were three things she knew about Katherine Grant.

First, she was not half as strong willed as her daughter, no matter how much she might imagine otherwise; second, she loves the sound of her own voice too much to not say anything throughout a whole meeting; and third, she wouldn't ever dine with someone of Kara's perceived social standing without a purpose.

Kara might have been fiddling with the napkin almost from the get go, but now Katherine was beginning to show signs of discomfort, it's there in how she has sighed three times in the past two minutes, and in how she carefully puts her wine glass down, sliding it ever so slightly forward and then to the right so that it ends up perfectly diagonal to the corner of her untouched napkin.

Just then the waiter returns and places down two small plates, one in front of each of them, answering the question as to whether or not Katherine ordered for her. Three seared scallops resting on a bed of some kind of red and green garnish, served in a large half shell sitting on a plate. Fancy and hopefully delicious, but hardly more than a couple of mouthfuls of food. Smiling her thanks at the waiter Kara picks up her fork.

Kara purposely pays Katherine no mind as she pops a scallop into her mouth and lets out a small hum of delight.

"My daughter intends to move to the Himalayas," Katherine announces with obvious displeasure, though whether it’s at her statement, or simply at the fact that Kara decided to eat rather than beg for her explanation is unclear.

Kara considers it a feat worthy of Supergirl when she manages not to choke on her food.

"The- the Himalayas? But that's-"

"Utterly foolish?" Katherine cuts in. "Yes, it is, but she insists that it’s what she's going to do."

"But why," Kara asks, putting her fork down and pushing her plate back. The rich salty taste of the scallop suddenly tastes bitter on her tongue, and tension winds through her body.

"I know she said she was going to dive, but this is so much. What about Catco? And Carter? And hasn't she still been working on things with Adam?"

"Yes, yes, I've already pointed out how disastrously foolish she's being to her, several times," Katherine says archly. Kara winces just thinking how that conversation must have gone. Katherine continues, oblivious or uncaring to her reaction.

"My daughter, however, has always had a stubborn streak that surfaces at the most inconvenient times. She refuses to listen to me."

Kara bites the inside of her cheek and nods completely unsurprised. She's organised enough emergency therapy sessions for Cat after her mother’s visits to know that was always going to be the outcome, but Katherine doesn't need her to say as much.

"Which is why you need to fix this," Katherine says, while Kara is still nodding. She stops nodding so quickly her neck cricks.

"What?!" Her exclamation is loud enough that the woman at the next table over looks over in shock.

"For some reason, heavens only knows what, she considers you worth listening to, and so you need to take advantage of that," Katherine says, scowling first at Kara, and then at their curious table neighbour who promptly looks away.

"I really don't know how you expect me to do that," Kara says. She pushes her glasses up her nose a little and lets out an awkward laugh. "I was just her assistant. If Miss Grant has made a decision, I don't see what you expect me to be able to do."

And it's true, she doesn't. Maybe she was more than just Cat's assistant by the end but even as her friend there isn't really anything she can do. She couldn't even get Cat to explain why she had decided to step down from Catco. All Cat had said was that it was her turn to dive, and she had done so with such a wistful look in her eye. If Kara didn't even know the reason behind her dive, or why she needed to leave to country to do it, then how could she stop it?

"I expect you to apologise for whatever you did and stop her from doing something stupider than falling for you in the first place," Katherine says bluntly.

Kara gapes.

"Honestly I told her the moment I saw you together that she needed to fire you," Katherine says, picking up her wine glass and settling back in her chair somewhat. There's something in the action that distantly reminds Kara of the way Alex will dig into a pint of rocky road and complain about new DEO recruits for the hundredth time entertaining herself (and Kara) with exasperated stories of how they messed up rather than actually being frustrated.

"I told her, it was just too cliché, and even the men don't get away with that kind of thing anymore, but she kept you on anyway. That stubborn streak again."

Kara continues to gape. Katherine takes a large sip of her wine and continues to speak.

"Still that same stubborn streak kept her from doing anything stupid. But then it got to the point where she couldn't _not_ promote you anymore."

Kara can't summon any words. She's not even sure she can close her hanging jaw in this bizarre Twilight Zone she must have fallen into, where Katherine Grant seems to think her daughter, _The Cat Grant_ , has some kind of attraction to Kara. 

"I suppose it would have been bad form to keep you as an assistant for too long, but I can't imagine you've become a boon to whatever department she put you in, with how you're just sitting there like a puppy that dropped its toy down a storm drain and is shocked it got swept away."

The mockery helps bring back a semblance of normality. This is what Kara expects to hear from Katherine. She snaps her jaw shut, and Katherine nods with small sniff of approval. Kara still can't gather any words, though she can feel the desire to speak beginning to simmer in the back of her throat.

"But promote you she did, and suddenly the company fraternisation rules, which she wrote and has no reason to be surprised by, say it’s possible for her to pursue something with you," Katherine says lazily waving her wine glass for emphasis, and now Kara is wondering how many of those she had before Kara's arrival.

"Instead however," she says with her tone sharpening and her brow furrowing, "she decides to move to Bhutan. So, whatever you did, you are going to fix it and put an end to this foolishness."

"Whatever I did?" Kara manages to echo disbelievingly.

Katherine puts her wine glass down and fixes Kara with a glare strong enough that she can finally see the resemblance between this woman and Cat.

"Yes, whatever _you_ did, this is obviously your fault whether you're intelligent enough to realise it or not," Katherine says her voice becoming close to a hiss. "It might be skirting at the edge of horrifically cliched, and I certainly wish my daughter would do better, but your background check came back better than both of her last two husbands, and I at least know you know how to order a car, and tickets at the theatre, which is more than I can say for either of them either. So yes, I would rather you went and cleared up this mess, than have my daughter go live in some mountain hut."

Kara just sits there sputtering, unsure of whether to even start with any of that. The part where she was insulted yet again? The part where Katherine apparently does background checks on people, she thinks Cat is interested in? She wasn't even going to touch the implication that Cat might have feelings for her. She'd had enough hopes crushed these past couple of weeks. Maybe the part where all it took to get rated higher than two of Cat's husbands was the ability to google a limo services number?

"Even if what you say is true," Kara begins.

Katherine scoffs as if Kara is an utter idiot for not taking what she has said as fact.

"Even if it's true," Kara begins again. "What makes you think I would return her feelings and want to stop her?" And apparently the speech centre of her brain had another idea about where to start.

Katherine rolls her eyes so dramatically, Kara has to wonder if it's possible for humans to cause themselves ocular damage with the action. She follows it up with a sigh so heavy Kara has a flashback to teenage Alex being annoyed that Kara didn't understand some obscurereference about some emo myspace comic about a cookie.

"You drove almost two hours out of town to have a lunch—that could only have been about Kitty—with a woman who has been openly disdainful of you the entire time you've known her," Katherine says her tone thick with condescension. "Let’s not waste our time debating whether or not you feel the same towards my daughter as she does towards you."

Kara almost blurts out that she didn't drive but catches herself. It would be a two-hour drive for a regular person. That is quite the commitment to make for lunch with someone she knows doesn't like her, and who she certainly doesn't like in return. And all for Cat.

As often as she might try to avoid acknowledging it—to refuse to let herself get her hopes up for it—she knows. She knows that she loves Cat, has loved her for the longest time. But she's kept it hidden. From Cat and from her friends. From _Alex_ even. She has kept it hidden for years from everyone, except apparently Katherine Grant.

"She's supposed to be flying out tomorrow evening," Katherine says primly picking up her fork and skewering a scallop on her plate. "You had best run along and help her cancel the flight."

With that she turns her full attention to her entree, and Kara has the very distinct feeling of having been dismissed. Moving as if on automatic Kara stands from her seat and heads for the door. She mutters a quiet "thank you for the lunch" as she goes, which gets summarily ignored by Katherine, and then she's outside.

She keeps walking down the driveway of the country club, until she's in the same blind spot between the front gate and the main building that she had used for landing when she arrived, and then she kicks off hard into the air. She hopes a few laps across the length of the Atlantic will be enough to clear her head.

* * *

As it turns out flying back and forth across the Atlantic at rapidly increasing speeds did not help Kara clear her head. It did get her a screenshot of some GPS data accompanied by a paired question and exclamation marks from Lucy’s DEO number though. She had replied with a vague “just blowing off some steam” and received a thumbs up and a heart emoji in response. She’d made a mental note to ask Lucy how she’d managed to get emoji’s enabled on her work phone, because her own specially issued DEO phone didn’t have them and J’onn had been very firm about that not changing when she’d asked about it.

It was a strange thing to have on her mind as she touched down on the balcony attached to Cat’s bedroom in her civilian clothes, but she was afraid if she stopped to think any more on what she was doing than she had while flying back and forth for the better part of five hours then she might throw up. Or fly off again. Or both.

She wonders if maybe Lucy had bribed Vasquez into adding the emoji’s somehow. Maybe it was just a perk of being co-director?

Kara walks up to the glass doors into Cat’s bedroom. The sight of an open suitcase on the bed sends a lance of pain through Kara’s chest. Cat is no where to be seen, but Kara can hear her moving about in the walk-in closet. Sure enough a few seconds later Cat strides into the room folding a shirt as she goes, before putting it in the case. The reminder that Cat really is preparing to leave pushes Kara’s body into motion, even as her mind screams at her to put on the breaks.

She raps her knuckles carefully on the glass. Cat jumps in shock, which morphs quickly to something like amusement, her lips quirking upward and her hand resting over her heart as she turns to the door.

“Super…” Cat starts what is probably going to be a greeting but trails off almost immediately at the sight of Kara bouncing on her heels anxiously by the door. Kara isn’t sure she has ever seen a truly shocked Cat Grant before. Certainly, she hasn’t seen the woman struck speechless. Her mouth has fallen open into a perfect oh, and her eyes are as wide as saucers. It is quite cute.

“May I?” Kara asks, more mouthing the words than saying them as she gestures to the door handle. Cat nods and watches as if hypnotised as Kara slips into the room, closing the door softly behind herself, and Kara watches Cat too, looking for the slightest indication that she is about to get told to leave.

“Should I assume a friend dropped you off,” Cat asks, finally shaking off some of her shock enough to go through the motions of a conversation, though her voice has a raw gasping quality to it.

“No, we both know it’d be a lie, and I don’t like lying to you” Kara says. She has to clench and unclench her fists to keep from wringing her fingers as she does so, but she manages it. Cat’s expression falls into one of shock again.

“Why now,” Cat asks, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. It’s a fair question and there is no trace of accusation in Cat’s tone when she asks. Just plain curiosity.

“I had lunch with your mother today.”

At this Cat looks over at her bedside table, where a scotch glass full of M&M’s is sitting, her folded arms loosening slightly. It suddenly strikes Kara that Carter must be in the house somewhere if the glass has M&M’s, and she begins to wring her fingers in spite of herself. Cat squints at the glass as if trying to determine if its somehow an illusion and that the glass actually contains whiskey then looks back to Kara.

“I can recommend a good therapist if you’d like?”

Kara barks out a laugh and reaches up to adjust her glasses.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, I didn’t even stay long enough to finish my entrée.” Cat hums noncommittedly at the answer, clearly of the opinion that even that short a stint may still be worth a therapy session even without saying so.

“She told me you’re moving to the Himalayas.”

Cat wrinkles her nose.

“Not that it’s _her_ business” Cat says her voice sharp at the edges before it softens, “or any ones for that matter, but yes.”

Kara hears the implied _“not your business”_ but she also sees the way Cat’s knuckles flash white gripping her own arms and hears just how quiet it is compared to the vitriol against her mother. She takes a deep breath.

“Maybe not, but I don’t want you to go.” Kara isn’t sure if it’s the work of a Kryptonian god or a human one that allows the words to leave her sounding so clear and strong, so she sends thanks to every deity she can think of in the moment.

For just a fraction of a moment she can see the shine of wonder and hope on Cat’s face before she can school it into the same mask of neutral annoyance that she uses to begin most board meetings. But Kara did see it, and it leaves her breathless. All at once all of the hopes she had been denying for so long, press at her chest, making it ache.

“And I’m supposed to stay just for you am I Supergirl?” Cat spits the name of her alter ego like its poison, and maybe back when she had first put on the cape Kara would have believed the aggressive disdain being directed to her was real, but not now.

“No,” Kara says, and she wonders if maybe it’s all the public speaking she has done as Supergirl that allows her to sound so calm now. Could she have done this before the Myriad speech?

“Of course not,” she continues, taking slow measured steps towards Cat as she does. “You should stay because Carter is finally starting to come out of his shell at this school. You should stay because Adam mentioned he might actually consider visiting you during the new year. You should stay because James Olsen put a weights rack in the corner of your office.”

Cat lets out a strangled squawk of disbelief and disgust at that looking truly stricken, and Kara smiles softly. She’s close enough to reach out and touch Cat now, so she does.

“I would like it,” she says very gently placing her hand over one of Cat’s and coaxing it loose from where it’s tucked into the crook of Cat’s opposite elbow. “If I could be one of the reasons why you stay. I’d love it in fact.”

Cat’s fingers flex and turn beneath hers until she’s holding Kara’s hand in return. The action looks to be automatic, as her other arm drops loosely to her side, and her tongue darts out to wet her lips. Kara takes another half step forward and now they’re standing so close that Cat has to tilt her head up, and Kara can feel the heat radiating from Cat’s body. Where their hands touch feels like she’s holding wildfire in her grasp.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Cat says, her voice is thick and husky.

She tries to look away from Kara, but that won’t do. With every ounce of tenderness that she can muster Kara brings her hand up to Cat’s jaw and turns her back to face her. Cat’s eyes scour every inch of Kara’s face.

“No,” Kara says firmly. “I’m very certain that I am trying to tell you I love you Cat Grant.” Cat gasps at her boldness. Kara muses if it’s possible to pass out from embarrassment, but still she presses on.

“And I am not naïve or selfish enough to demand that you should stay just for me, but you told me to dive, so here I am telling you and hoping that just maybe I can be one of the reasons you stay at the very least in National City, even if you don’t go back to Catco.”

Cat’s eyes are glistening with unshed tears now, and Kara can feel panic roiling heavy and furiously in her gut for every second that Cat doesn’t say anything.

She’s just about to crack and start spewing out a rapidly constructed string of apologies when Cat surges onto her toes. Kara feels a quick press of heat against her lips, and then her nose is filled with the scent of Cat’s shampoo as Cat buries her face in her front, holding her in an embrace so tight it might have winded her if she were human.

“I’m sorry,” Cat mumbles into her shoulder. “That was entirely inappropriate.”

“ _This_ is entirely inappropriate,” she adds attempting to step back out of Kara’s arms.

Kara allows her to move back just far enough to give her space to swoop down and press her lips against Cat’s in return. She lingers where Cat didn’t, savouring the softness of Cat’s lips moving against her own, and the ghostly sweetness left by the M&M’s she must have been snacking on earlier. When she does pull back, she feels dazed. She is pleasantly surprised to see that Cat looks it. Cat however pulls herself back together closer that Kara is willing to.

“We can’t just jump into this,” she says, a hint of sharp warning in her tone. Kara presses a swift kiss to her cheek.

“We’ll have to talk about this.”

Kara acknowledges her words with quick peck to her other cheek.

“There will be meetings with Human Resources.”

A kiss to the forehead.

“There will be paperwork.”

“But you’ll be here to do it,” Kara asks her voice so soft as to be awe filled.

Cat loops her arms around Kara’s neck and pulls her down low enough to press their foreheads together.

“Yes Kara, I’ll be here, there’s no place that would make me happier.”

Their next kiss is made awkward by their inability to keep from smiling so wide, but it’s warm and it lasts. Kara knows they have a lot to talk about, from why Cat was going to move to the Himalaya’s to what they’ll tell their families, and everything about her life as Supergirl, but for now Cat’s fingers are curling into the hair at the base of her neck, and tongue is tracing Kara’s lower lip, and really, what else matters?

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS! I really hope you enjoyed this, because I had a lot of fun writing for these guys again even if it's been a long time. I hope how long its been didn't show in the writing... Anyways I hope you have a lovely day, and thanks for taking the time to read this fic ^_^  
> (P.S. Sorry if there were any glaring mistakes, life insisted on happening so I didn't have as much time to do more than a cursory edit.)


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